Johnson: AYP doesn't show schools' real progress

The Iredell-Statesville Board of Education and top school system administrators met Sunday to examine the last school year and look forward to see what improvements could be made.
As expected, the news regarding the 2010-2011 school year contained challenges as well as celebrations. School leaders seemed to be most troubled by the federal No Child Left Behind standards known as Adequate Yearly Progress.
I-SS Superintendent Brady Johnson said the AYP standards do more harm than good, are unattainable for many schools and are essentially inaccurate.
“It’s a win or lose measure,” Johnson said. “And it’s impractical. And when the schools don’t make AYP, even if they achieve high growth, it’s demoralizing to those teachers.”
Only 11 of 35 I-SS schools (31.4 percent) made AYP, a figure that is actually better than several area districts, including Rowan-Salisbury, Gaston County, Hickory City and Cabarrus County.
Johnson said that if the same criteria were used in the college or university systems, virtually none of them would meet the AYP standards.
“Can you imagine going to Chapel Hill and saying, ‘If one student fails, the whole college fails?’” Johnson said. “It’s the same thing and it’s a shame so many good schools are being wrongly labeled.”
Using the ABC standards, 71.4 percent of I-SS schools met “expected” or “high growth” standards. This number is down from the 2009-2010 school year when 85.7 percent of the districts school hit these levels.
I-SS did see improvements in its graduation rates. In the past two school years, those figures have climbed from 80.9 percent to 85.1 percent.
And there were improvements in several specific AYP categories. Reading and math scores in grades 3 to 8 and in 10^th grade showed significant growth.
Deputy Superintendent Ron Hargrave said disciplinary problems in the schools are trending toward the positive. He said out-of-school suspensions were reduced in the past school year from nearly 6,900 student-school days to just more than 5,300.
And, he said, the teachers and administrators are doing a better job of identifying bullying that is going on in the schools, so the number of reported incidents in that area has actually gone up.
“Hopefully we can start to see a downward trend next year,” he said.
And while the kids may be getting into less trouble, they are also getting into larger clothes. Hargrave said only 45 percent of the school district was met the standard of being in what is known as the Healthy Fitness Zone. In Hargrave’s report, a note was made that the standards for HFZ were changed midway through the year and used body mass index (BMI) and aerobic capacity to test the students and that lowered the district’s fitness results.
But the biggest problem has been money.
Everyone is being asked to do more with less, several of those who spoke said.Kenny Miller, I-SS facilities director, mentioned about a dozen projects that could be started if the funding was available. He said that has a mushrooming effect.
“When facilities are impacted, it impacts all the other areas,” Miller said and added that it could get even worse. He said that planning for growth takes two years from concept to implementation and that even with the harsh economic conditions, it is not too early to start thinking about new schools.
“When this economy recovers things are going to start moving really fast,” he said. “And if we’re not prepared for it, we’re going to have another mobile city.”
Johnson said the school system, the state and the nation may not have seen the worst of the Great Recession and said that until the economy clarifies itself, “I think it will pay us big dividends to stay fiscally conservative.”
School starts for teachers on Aug. 18. The first day of classes is Aug. 25.